We performed a comparison between Netgate pfSense and Sophos XGS based on real PeerSpot user reviews.
Find out in this report how the two Firewalls solutions compare in terms of features, pricing, service and support, easy of deployment, and ROI."Consolidated our network environment at all locations, but mainly at our datacenter."
"Fortinet FortiGate is scalable for our users. Right now, we have almost 70 users. We do not have any plan to increase our usage of FortiGate. For maintaining the firewall solution, one staff member is enough."
"Fortinet FortiGate is easy to use. Anyone can easily maintain it."
"The payment function for applications is good."
"Mainly the FortiGate reporting system is very good. It guides us through all the expectations of security. Fortinet provides us all that we need for security. Also, Fortinet FortiGate is a next-generation firewall. It is much more advanced than others."
"The application control features, such as Facebook blocking and Spotify blocking, are the most valuable."
"The most valuable features of Fortinet FortiGate are the ease of use and the UI. It has always provided me with what I needed. I have no need for additional costs that other solutions have, such as Sophos."
"FortiGate is very simple to manage and easy to use."
"Good basic firewall features."
"The flexibility of adding new kinds of services without spending any money can't be beaten."
"The plugins or add-ons are most valuable. Sometimes, they are free of charge, and sometimes, you have to pay for them, but you can purchase or download very valuable plugins or add-ons to perform internal testing of your network and simulate a denial-of-service attack or whichever attack you want to simulate. You can also remote and monitor your network and see where the gap is. Did you forget a printer port? Most attacks at the moment are happening through printers, and they can tell you immediately that you forgot to close the port of the printer. There are more than one million printers that are in danger, and everybody knows that hackers are using them to enter the network. So, you can download plugins to protect your network."
"I can manage it easily by myself."
"Sophos Intercept X is scalable. Currently, we have almost 30 people using it in our company."
"Technical support is perfect, excellent."
"A valuable feature is that the solution is open source."
"Open source and support are valuable. I have community support."
"XGS' most valuable feature is ransomware protection."
"It's easy to use, and the service is good. If anything goes wrong, their support system is very reliable."
"It is very stable. I have not heard of any issue where clients would have to replace hardware. It's been really stable for a long while."
"It is scalable."
"It's easy to use and user-friendly."
"The solution is stable and reliable."
"Sophos XGS that's a good firewall. If you use the endpoint, then you have what Sophos calls synchronized security. That will mean that if one of the endpoints is affected, it will be automatically set in isolation."
"All the features are valuable, in my opinion, but for us the most important features are the network security, application control, and web server protection. Sophos Sandstorm is another good feature off the top of my head."
"The scalability could be better."
"Usually, we sell the bundle with the UTM or threat management piece with IPS, IDS. Other providers, such as Palo Alto, are ahead in terms of safe functionality. So, for me, delivering truly safe service is probably something that still needs to be improved."
"Currently, FortiGate is providing SSL VPN. But they're missing some features that are available in Palo Alto's SSL VPN."
"It should have a better pricing plan. It is too expensive. It should also have a more granular view of the attack. I don't have FortiAnalyzer, and it is difficult for me to have a complete view when there is an attack on my server."
"I would like to see more advanced developments of a wireless controller in the future."
"It could use better throughput on some of the smaller boxes for the branch offices."
"To the best of my knowledge, Fortinet does not have a CASB solution and Fortinet does not have a Zero trust solution."
"We'd like more management across other integrations."
"There's a bit of a learning curve during the initial implementation."
"Ease of use is a problem for a user who is unfamiliar with this product because, in the interface, everything has to be set manually."
"In an upcoming release, the reporting could be more user-friendly. For example, the reporting in graphs and charts for the host can be cumbersome."
"The technical support needs to be improved."
"Ultimately, we'd like something stronger, and something that can handle threats better in real-time."
"The interface is not very shiny and attractive."
"The main problem with pfSense is that we have to use proxy solutions."
"ClamAV AntiVirus can cause some crashes. That service should be improved."
"Its pricing could be better."
"It would be good if we could do dual customization."
"The speed of report generation could be improved."
"I would like to see them in third-party evaluation reports like Gartner, Magic Quadrant, or Forrester to make it easier for us to show our customers that Sophos is a leader in the market."
"Sometimes, we haven't received proper support. They couldn't find the solutions that we required. One thing that we need is an NTP server facility. The Sophos XGS device does not have this capacity or this feature."
"It would be nice to have features like the network access control (NAC) that Cisco has for Identity Services Engine. In the next release, I would also like to see an increase in the performance of the processing units."
"I do not get notifications regarding ISP downtime."
"What could be improved in Sophos XGS is its connectivity with Azure AD. It's best if it could work directly without using any servers locally, or in the data center, and this functionality should be made available in this product."
Netgate pfSense is ranked 1st in Firewalls with 128 reviews while Sophos XGS is ranked 17th in Firewalls with 59 reviews. Netgate pfSense is rated 8.6, while Sophos XGS is rated 7.8. The top reviewer of Netgate pfSense writes "User-friendly, easy to manage the firewall, rule-wise and interface-wise". On the other hand, the top reviewer of Sophos XGS writes "Easy to use, simple to learn, and offers great reporting". Netgate pfSense is most compared with OPNsense, Sophos XG, KerioControl, Sophos UTM and Cisco Secure Firewall, whereas Sophos XGS is most compared with Sophos XG, OPNsense, WatchGuard Firebox, Palo Alto Networks NG Firewalls and Meraki MX. See our Netgate pfSense vs. Sophos XGS report.
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We monitor all Firewalls reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.
